Cult TV Blog

I have now seen Grasshopper Island (1971) all the way through once and have had my initial impression confirmed, that it is a delight. True to form it has also raised many a question for me. It is a series of very short episodes about three brothers (referred to throughout by their nicknames of Toughy, Smarty, and Mouse) who get tired of authority figures so decide to run away for a year and a day, to a desert island. They pack up and go to the docks, where of course nobody will take them except for a man described as an elderly boy, because he isn't old and isn't young. He takes them away on his boat and leaves them on a desert island, shot on location in Corsica. He won't leave them and can't cope without them, but eventually gets the hint and leaves the brothers there. This leads to the longest, middle part of the show, where they are living this blissful life in the sun on their island with no authority figures. They have the odd squabble but this is not Lord of the...

The advantage of themed series of posts is they keep my grasshopper mind on the subject and the disadvantage is they don't necessarily represent what I'm watching and detract from the principle that I blog about what I'm actually watching. Hence a sort of round up post of some things I have been watching and some things I've just discovered. Some of these might get a post of their own as well. When I was doing the posts about orphaned episodes it brought home to me that it is important not to give a show or a film the same name as another one. Obviously we know all about this problem with The Avengers, but it turns out there was a TV comedy show between 1983 and 1988 called  Who Dares Wins . Even at the time that name was a mistake because since it is the motto of the SAS it had already been used by  this  film, and has since been used by  this  TV show and then  this  one. What is wrong with you people? You might think you're giving your show a punchy...

  What did you do in 1970s Blackburn if the kids refused to behave and you were worried they would end up in a life of crime? You got the Juvenile Liaison team from the police in to scream at them. Forget The Sweeney, this is some bloody scary television. I'm a bit confused about what the team was actually intended to do, and it's not possible to find out online because the internet is mostly dominated by reviews of this documentary. The opening titles say that the role of the team is to caution children and young people brought to their attention. I'm not sure what was intended because to me a 'caution' is a legal thing the police can do. Basically it's you admitting to what they say you've done and them giving you a formal caution and it saves them the trouble of taking you to court. Because this blog aims to be instructive as well as entertaining, just in case there is anyone who doesn't know here is a Public Service Announcement: NEVER ACCEPT A POLIC...

The introduction and master post to this series of posts about The Prisoner can be found  here . And so we've reached the end of this series of posts about The Prisoner being interpreted as being about mental health or The Village being a very special clinic, and I have some conclusions. My one regret or problem with this series of posts is that I think they are actually a book, and I'm in no fit state to put up with the reasonable expectations of publishers and the reading public these days so if anyone ever writes it, it won't be me. The area of psychiatry and psychological health in the middle of the twentieth century is a HUGE area which can be seen as referenced by this series in many ways in each episode. I chose to hang one or a few subjects about mental health on each episode as they related to it. I think this mainly worked, although I think a book length account would require a general overview of what was going on in psychiatry followed by an exhaustive account o...

The introduction and master post to this series of posts about The Prisoner can be found  here . Welcome to the most lively discharge meeting in world history! The recap of Once Upon a Time which begins this episode allows us to refresh our memories of what I have interpreted as therapy sessions which have led up to this point. I am however painfully reminded that Number 2 talks about degree absolute (decree absolute?) which sounds like a divorce using the language of marriage (for better or worse, till death us do part), and contains the same mixture of affectionate talk and violence that we saw in The Girl Who Was Death. I am therefore hearing the same mixture of violence, lack of boundaries, incest and just plain abuse that I have read here before. A possible simple interpretation of this episode in psychiatric terms would be that it depicts a very unwell person's inner world and also an absconsion from hospital of several patients. You could interpret it that way if you want th...

The introduction and master post to this series of posts about The Prisoner can be found  here . In my last post I considered some of the possible interpretations, mainly with a psychiatric bias, of this episode. Now we come to the final possible interpretation I suggested. (6) Symbolism The episode begins by showing us the story book and so clearly suggests that what we are about to see may not be strictly speaking true. However this is one of the episodes of the show which is most full of symbols which can represent other things and a number of totally bizarre experiences, so it clearly isn't intended simply to be taken aa an entertaining story. I would suggest that one of the reasons this episode comes late in the run and lacks a set interpretation for the symbols and narrative, is that we are being invited to interpret them for ourselves. You've got it, exactly as in therapy. However I want to go through some of the symbols and tie them up to other things mentioned in the s...

The introduction and master post to this series of posts about The Prisoner can be found  here . Warning : this post includes mention of traumatic experiences which some readers may find distressing. There are a number of ways of taking The Girl Who Was Death (at least for the purposes of this blog post) and I will touch on all of them during this post so I'll have to begin by listing them in the hope that readers will have some map for where I'm going. They are that: (1) Number 6 is psychotic and hallucinating all this without the aid of psychedelics; (2) Number 6 is paranoid; (3) Number 6 is still stoned on LSD from Living in Harmony and this is a hallucination which may form part of LSD therapy; (4) this is a story (which may or may not tell the ongoing story of the dangers of the Village); (5) the episode may represent a therapy session where Number 6 talks about a number of traumas; (6) the episode may represent a number of symbols which give clues to the meaning of the sh...